I so wanted to love this exhibit. I'll admit that bias right from the start. I know first-hand what goes into a shoot, and the crucial animating energy of modeling — the performance that is part mute, still-frame acting, part own-stunt cojones (who do you think climbs South American rock faces without ropes, in couture? Lily Donaldson's double?), part pure, inexplicable presence — and I feel, frankly, that our contributions to the fashion industry and the discourse of images that the industry uses to represent itself to the world are often underreported and undersold. Getting up in the morning and transforming, convincingly, into the apotheosis of a photographer, designer, and stylist's only partly shared creative vision isn't easy.

And just now, after season upon season of most designers choosing to make their models look as inconspicuous, anonymous, and blandly interchangeable as possible on the runway and in advertising, after years in which the model has shrunk before our very eyes, the culture seems ripe for some kind of redress: a resurgence of individuality, a reassertion of personality. A return to the days when the casual fashionista — as opposed to only the dedicated indexer of Internet-derived fashion arcana — could at least tell us all apart. The theme of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's brand-new and infinitely hyped "Model as Muse" exhibit, with its privileged understanding of the lowly clotheshorse's role in advancing fashion, seemed to promise a move in that direction.

What a terrible disappointment, then, to walk through the Tisch gallery on opening day and find an exhibit that was seemingly laid out with the goal of inspiring the utmost tedium in the viewer. I should have known as soon as I passed that terrible bit of tat with creepy Robo-Dovima in the entryway: the first corridor of photographs is lit with softboxes suspended from the ceiling. Softboxes. Photographic equipment illuminating exemplars of fashion photography! The single-entendre curation never lets up; the viewer is also subjected to such cheesy gestures as stepping literally through a velvet rope in order to enter the 1970s gallery. (Done up, naturally, to look like the basement of Studio 54, complete with unlit cigarettes.) It is difficult to concentrate on the beauty that surrounds when your ears are being assaulted with Alicia Bridges' "I Love The Nightlife" and your eyes with a tawdry-looking spread of yet more blank-faced mannequins, all decked out in truly atrocious wigs by fashion hairstylist Julien d'Ys.

I suspect even the curators, led by Costume Institute head Harold Koda, found their vision a little less than compelling: the exhibit often seems like the product of minds that occasionally wandered. In the wall copy, I spied the former model Anjelica Huston's name mis-spelled with a 'g', and I read twice within 30 seconds the phrase "attenuated limbs." (British model Karen Elson, in the 90s room, has "elegantly attenuated limbs," while American Stephanie Seymour, who closes out the 80s gallery, has "gracefully attenuated limbs.")

This Avedon photo of Lauren Hutton is what every American Apparel ad wants to be. And never will.

The exhibit proceeds dully, chronologically, through roughly the past 60 years of fashion history. The galleries dealing with each decade are separated by lines as clear as they are arbitrary; the Fifties, you see, was the decade of the Continent and Dior and Balenciaga, but then once the clock struck 12:01 on January 1, 1960, nobody made couture anymore, and Rudi Gernreich immediately put the obliging Peggy Moffitt in his monokini. Cue mod! (Cue the Who! On repeat!)

Veruschka, shot here for the August, 1968, issue of French Vogue by her then-lover, Franco Rubartelli, played a role in her shoots that today would be highly unusual for a model. She had significant input into, or sometimes even sole control, of the styling, the makeup, and the hair, and the images produced were generally collaborations between herself and the photographer.

It's hard to screw up showing quality fashion photography, framed on a wall. (Even the various viewer-insulting "contextual" gestures, like blaring pop music and the intrusive graffiti in the 90s room — perpetrated by hairdresser d'Ys, at Anna Wintour's instruction, which goes to show just how much control the noted museum patron has over the arts on display — do not entirely manage to quash the timeless beauty of, for example, Irving Penn's June 1950 Vogue cover shot of Jean Patchett. The presentation of the artifacts on the walls is fine. What I am still unclear about is the value of seeing the mannequin'd tableaux-morts featuring the actual designer clothes; if the point of this show is to celebrate models and their animating contributions to fashion and fashion photography, then, after seeing Veruschka in Yves Saint Laurent's safari collection, or Bert Stern's astonishing studio shot of Twiggy in the same designer's beaded midriff-dress, what end is served by seeing these same garments presented in dim exhibition suites, too far away to make out any detail of stitching or cut, on lifeless dummies that bear no resemblance to the women who once illuminated their beauty as articles of clothing? The safari dress as it hangs in the show isn't even styled properly. It lacks, in addition to Veruschka's firepower, its ring belt.

Even back in 1967, sample shoes didn't fit. Twiggy poses here, on her first trip to the U.S., for Vogue photographer Bert Stern.

If "Model as Muse" serves any useful purpose, it is to remind the viewer of fashion's headwaters, and of just how derivative fashion photography has become. In the first hall of the exhibit is Richard Avedon's iconic image of Sunny Harnett at the roulette table; in the last, is Stephen Meisel's 1998 version, with Carolyn Murphy. The elements are so much the same — blonde, cream dress, tuxedo'd gent, roulette — that the latter scrambles to rise to meet the criteria of "homage."

Sunny Harnett by Richard Avedon, for U.S. Harper's Bazaar, September, 1954.

In the 1960s suite, somewhere under the blaring of "My Generation" and the projected Qui Etes-Vous, Polly Magoo clip on repeat that overwhelms the room, there's a single page from the September, 1965 Harper's Bazaar.

Jean Shrimpton, by Richard Avedon.

It served to remind me of nothing so much as this Patrick Demarchelier image from last September's Vogue.

Catherine McNeil, by Patrick Demarchelier.

A picture of Lisa Taylor wearing Calvin Klein, by Helmut Newton for the May, 1975 issue of Vogue, hangs in the 1970s hall, near some mealy wall copy about 1970s gender roles. (A subject which any viewer would learn more about simply by pondering the viewer-viewed dynamic here between the languid, powerful-looking Taylor and the foregrounded male model, whose ass looks so unusually objectified.)

Lisa Taylor, by Helmut Newton.

Of course, as commenter LittleNemo pointed out last year when I posted a spread, Glen Luchford's September, 2008, Harper's Bazaar photo of Freja Beha Erichsen owes a debt to Newton.

Freja Beha Erichsen, by Glen Luchford.

This Demarchelier and the Luchford were not in the Met's show — the post-grunge years seem to be a curatorial afterthought, as they are represented in main by two outfits from a recent Louis Vuitton collection by principal exhibit sponsor Marc Jacobs and a bunch of pictures of Gisele Bundchen. But, whether all these archetypal images' latter-day derivations are physically present or not, you can only wander through these corridors for a matter of seconds before phrases like "anxiety of influence" come irrepressibly to mind.

It is, I am sure, not the reaction Koda, Wintour, Jacobs, and d'Ys would want. But these eminent lightweights, with their spraycans, their predilection for references to fictional movies about the industry, their ugly wigs and their uglier Nirvana soundtrack, their mis-spellings and their children's book fashion history — not to mention their craven elision of designer Azzedine Alaïa — did more than enough to earn it.

Perhaps someday a museum will be equal to mounting an intelligent investigation of the changing roles of fashion models, and fashion photography's relationship to the wider culture — its uneasily shifting placement on the continuum between high art and low commerce, between editorial content in magazines and clothes and makeup as we do them in everyday life. Perhaps someday, we'll see the model as muse. But that museum is not the Met, and that exhibition is not yet come.

The Model As Muse [Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Related: Alaïa Pulls His Dresses From The Met Gala [On The Runway]
Model As Veteran [NY Times]

• Helena Christensen told InStyle magazine that she's never lived with a man — although she was actually married for five years. [Daily Mail]

• Bill Clinton made a surprise appearance at the Tribeca Ball, an event that benefits the New York Academy of Art. A fashion crowd including designer Jason Wu mingled with performers like Liev Schreiber and Justin Timberlake, hotel impresario Andre Balazs, and socialites. The event was filled with student art; Timberlake and Schreiber reportedly took a lot of interest in an exhibit that included two live models whose bodies guests were invited to paint and decorate with eggshells. At the end of the night, Bill Clinton's security detail was also overheard muttering, "That man is a chick magnet." [WWD]
• Speaking of politico-sartorial news, Sarah Brown, wife of the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, met with Michelle Obama for more than an hour during her husband's state visit. Brown's gift to the First Lady was kid's clothes from TopShop for Sasha and Malia; like Michelle Obama, Sarah Brown sometimes likes to mix inexpensive chain-store items in with her wardrobe. I know, right! [Telegraph]
• Arena, the British men's magazine, is another casualty of the recession. The April, 2009, issue will be its last. Arena Homme Plus, the twice-yearly fashion magazine spinoff, is supposedly not affected, and nor are the six international editions, all of which are published under license. [WWD]
• Tracy Feith for Target doesn't get into stores until May 17, but lookbook images have already surfaced. The clothes are — not great. (There's a romper with bloomer shorts.) But one of the models is Allie from The City, if that makes any difference to you. [Racked]
• That other, slightly better, Target designer collection — Alexander McQueen's McQ line — is now available online. [Racked]
• Badgley Mischka's spring campaign, shot by Annie Leibovitz, features Anjelica Huston, Brooke Shields, Lauren Hutton, Eva Longoria...and Carrie Underwood. [WWD]
• I really hope that Agent Provocateur, the lingerie label, won't be hurt by all this press about their "racy" and "saucy" new ad campaign. I mean, what if The Sun were to determine it "crosses" the line"? I imagine that'd be just terrible. [The Sun]
• An ad for Olay's Regenerist wrinkle cream has been banned in England for being "offensive and demeaning to women" — because the makers, Proctor and Gamble, lied about the results of a study of the cream's effectiveness, and implied that cosmetic injections were an inevitable step in as any woman aged. [Telegraph]
• In Milan, Roberto Cavalli showed an 80s-heavy collection that was so small the LA Times wondered if all his samples had arrived. Could the cash bleed of his diffusion line, Just Cavalli — whose licensee, Ittierre, went bankrupt, and then sued Cavalli this week for angry statements the designer had made to the media about his losses — be affecting his main line? [LA Times]
• Scarlett Johansson, face of Dolce & Gabbana cosmetics, was the inspiration for the makeup at Dolce & Gabbana. Pat McGrath recreated "modern Hollywood glamor" with false lashes, liquid eyeliner, and red lips, not that anyone's ever done that before. [WWD]
• The booker of Auguste Abeliunaite, the Lithuanian 16-year-old who cried on the Jil Sander runway, says Abeliunaite won't be going to Paris, despite walking four top shows in Milan, because she's too young. But Paris sets — and actually does a good job enforcing — 16 as the minimum age for runway work. (Milan has no age limit.) And a girl who'd walked any show cast by Russell Marsh, let alone Prada, would be sent to Paris yesterday if she were really 16. My guess is this pale-eyed schoolgirl has a passport that makes her out to be 15 or younger. [WSJ]
• There's good news and bad news on the retail front this morning. First, let's do bad: The Body Shop is cutting 275 jobs. [WWD]
• And Kenneth Cole's fourth quarter loss has increased, to $12 million. [WWD]
• Liz Claiborne's fourth quarter net loss also widened — to $828.9 million. The company also declined to provide an earnings forecast for 2009. [WSJ]
• Adidas, meanwhile, increased its fourth quarter profits by 151%, or to a net of $74 million. [WWD]
• And all the designers are cutting costs — by rooming together at the Ritz for the Paris shows. Alexander Wang, Brian Reyes, and Victoria Bartlett are reportedly sharing digs, which sounds like the most awesome sleepover, ever. [The Cut]
• There's an unusual juxtaposition of stories in WWD's brief items this morning: first up is Simon Doonan, who was asked about the fashion industry's troubles at an AIDS benefit auction he co-hosted with Tim Gunn, which is all standard fare. But then next is a paragraph about an ultrarunner who spent five years running across six continents, all of which was filmed by his wife for a documentary, and in so doing raised $400,000 for an Alaska-based charity. The fashion content of the latter story is unclear; the reporter, in being dragged so far from his realm of expertise, also seems to have gotten a little confused. Something about the sentence, "His wife was held with a knife to her throat for more than an hour at the Morocco-Gibraltar border," strikes one as off. Perhaps because there is no "Morocco-Gibraltar border" — only some 7.7 nautical miles of sea. [WWD]
• Paris Hilton's perfume will exist for another five years. Sigh. [WWD]

• Rihanna is currently on a beach in Mexico, and this picture on the cover of the NY Daily News is the first we've seen of her in a long while. [NY Daily News]

• Chris Brown's March 5 arraignment may be postponed because the LAPD is still investigating the case. A source told E! News, "The D.A. is being even more thorough than usual with this case. They don't want to mess it up." [E!]
• Kevin Federline is starting his own children's clothing line because he doesn't want to pay a lot for jeans. He says: "It's a really tough business, I'm trying to take it seriously and make a quality product for kids but not have parents pay like $500 or something ridiculous for a pair of jeans. You buy your kids a pair of True Religions, then they roll around in the dirt like kids do and a $200 pair of jeans is gone. With this economy, I'm looking to do something much more reasonable." Uh… All you have to do is shop at The Children's Place or Old Navy or Target or somewhere they don't sell True Religion for children. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are suing baby buggy company Silver Cross, claiming the manufacturer unlawfully used a picture of the celebrity parents pushing twins Emme and Max in their strollers. Don't you know if you want J. Lo and Marc to endorse your product, you have to pay? [E!]
• It's hard to focus on this story about how Lily Allen likes naked lapdances and partying with Lindsay Lohan because the picture of Lily and Lindsay wearing black masks and showing off their "shh" tattoos is oddly mesmerizing. Question: Did we ever figure out what LL meant when she said the "shh" tattoo was a "woman empowerment thing"? [The Sun]
• Katie Holmes may be working on a flick in New York, but she plays "fourth fiddle" behind Kevin Kline, Paul Dano and John C. Reilly. Fox's Roger Friedman calls her movie career "over." [Fox 411]
• Slumdog's Dev Patel is in talks to appear on the real Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to raise cash for kids living on the streets. [The Sun]
• What's next for the stars of Slumdog? Lots more movies. [NY Daily News]
• Madonna is helping Rosie O'Donnell get through menopause. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Dita Von Teese signed a record deal. She will be singing now. Of course, she won't be warbling "All The Single Ladies" or anything: She plans to cover Irving Berlin's "Lazy." [E!]
• Keira Knightley was to play Cordelia in a £25 million film version of King Lear, but it's been scrapped. [Telegraph]
• Peaches Geldof was not allowed to drink at the NME awards; she placed an alcohol ban on herself. [Daily Mail]
• Jay Leno was questioned by a Writers Guild panel yesterday; they are trying to determine if he violated strike rules by delivering a monologue last year (during the strike). [Variety]
• LOL: Ever since Kellogg's dumped Michael Phelps, there have been oodles of negative stories about the brand. [Silicon Alley Insider]
• DMX is in jail, where he is not behaving himself: He stole a tray of food from the dining hall and threw it at a corrections officer. How would they handle this on Oz? [Perez]
• Chris Isaak has his own talk show, The Chris Isaak Hour, on the Bio channel. It starts tonight! Guests play songs and chat and hang out with Chris's dog. [USA Today]
• If you get divorced, the guys you date afterward, who put a "spark" back in your heartbroken life — Jennifer Aniston calls them "defibrillator men." [Daily Mail]
• "Big Poppa" has moved in with Real Housewives' Kim Zolciak. Yeah, he's married. [NY Daily News]
• In case you've been wondering what the hell she's been up to, Kate Bosworth is producing the film based on a book called Lost Girls and Love Hotels. [Gatecrasher]
• What the world needs now: A Jerry Seinfeld marriage-oriented reality show. Celebs, comedians and athletes will "judge couples in the midst of marital disputes while recommending various strategies to resolve their problems." I thee dread! [Hollywood Reporter]
• Brenda Blethyn opened a new library in her hometown and paid a fine for a book she borrowed 50 years ago. Bet Hortense loves this one. [The Sun]
• Clint Eastwood is the second person ever to received a lifetime achievement honor from the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival; he hot the Palme D'Or yesterday. Ingmar Bergman got one in 1997. [Reuters]
• The James Brown museum may be on hold, but there is a James Brown exhibit at South Carolina State University. See glittering suits and glossy shoes and the comb he used to neatly sculpt his hair. [AP]
• Star Jones's ex, Al Reynolds, is maybe getting engaged again, if you care. [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which sleazy reality star is going to have a cow when he finds out there's a sex tape of him floating around? In it, he's having a threesome with his very best friend." [Gatecrasher]
• "I'm probably a little bit shocked but I remember the overwhelming thing was feeling like I was just floating on a cloud. I went into that event knowing that was my last rally but no one else knew that. So when I crashed and I realised we were both OK, it was a massive relief." — Eric Bana, on crashing his race car during a Tasmanian rally. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I sincerely hope that this tragedy will make people realize that great apes should never be kept as pets or exploited for films, television, or advertising. Their lives are miserable from the day that they are taken from their mothers... until they are cast off to roadside zoos or meet a violent end, as Travis did in this tragic case." — Anjelica Huston, on the chimpanzee attack. [Daily Express]
• "I think that at 12:30, either you're awake or you're not. I don't think the 10 p.m. will affect me at all. If we can do decent ratings, hold on to Conan's numbers, I'll be happy. It's a marathon, not a race. It's a long, long thing if it's going to work." — Jimmy Fallon. [USA Today]
• "The stars made by television who were once so big you just couldn't believe it-Johnny Carson, Carol Burnett, people like that, Sid Caesar-they were enormous stars made by television, but there were lots of real stars in America. Now everything is so vitiated because there is so much media, if we want to dignify a lot of it, it begins to just all run together. At least when you said "Clark Gable" or "Elizabeth Taylor" or "Katharine Hepburn," you knew exactly who you were talking about, you didn't have to explain them. Now you have to talk about people like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears and the people on the American Idol. I mean, it's very diminished in quality, I guess is what I'd say, the quality of stardom. Because I don't know who most of those people are. I'm not kidding! I read Page Six mystified every day, and everybody I talk to agrees with me. They don't know who anybody is." — Liz Smith. [The Daily Beast]
• "A real gossip story is Lana Turner's daughter killing Johnny Stompanato. It had all kinds of tragic ramifications-celebrity, sex, a little girl involved and so forth. I mean, who cares if somebody you've never heard of is sniffing cocaine in a bathroom down in Soho? That's the level of gossip today. There seems to me to be no real stories and the real ones all appear in the headlines-A-Rod taking steroids, though why anybody gives a shit I don't understand. You know, the real story of this year is Bernie Madoff, and betrayal, disaster and everything else, lives being smashed and ruined by somebody's criminal activity. But gossip? Even the ‘90s are beginning to look good." — Liz Smith. [The Daily Beast]
• "I thought that was something that you could use for humor, like any other comedian or someone else would utilize current events. After I saw the photographs of Rihanna, that wasn't funny anymore. There's a point you're already past a woman fighting you back. You look at (the photograph), and it obviously went past that point, so there's some issues there that definitely gotta be addressed. Not to take any shots at Chris or Rihanna or to take sides in any way, but it's really not cool. It's not funny at all anymore. That's why there won't be no more references to that from me in any way." — 50 Cent, who initially mocked the Rihanna/Chris Brown incident with a "Street Fighter"- like characters in an animated video. [MSNBC]
• "I was average. I had a lot of friends but I was not in that ultra cool circle. I was a bit of a class clown. I guess to get through the tedium of the quadratic formula, I thought everyone was fair game. Between self-discovery and the social hierarchy, high school can be the most confusing time of your life." — Zac Efron. [Mirror]
• "I'm so negative against her. She just shouldn't have any of those children as far as I'm concerned. I know that's going to get me in a whole mess of trouble, but I don't know where her mind is. She says the strangest things. I don't think she's doing drugs, but she acts like someone who is not of this world. It's like, 'hello, come down to Planet Earth with the rest of us!'" —Cher, on Nadya Suleman. [USA Today via ET]
• "My mom is like this hard-core, liberal feminist. She's a professor in Boston, and she's been teaching women's studies for 30 years and international politics. So I've traveled, and I've heard so many women's stories, and I've heard stories of really, really hard lives. And I just feel like there are so many stories to be told, and it's hard to find someone who can sort of intertwine them with the right kind of action and suspense and use genius metaphors ... while striking a chord with the universal theme of the search for one's true identity. I asked Joss [Whedon] to create it with me and for me, and it was really special to me." — Eliza Dushku, star of Dollhouse. [USA Today]

• Sara Trumble, the nanny who used to take care of wee Beatrice McCartney, is suing Bea's mum, Heather Mills, because "Mills required her to blow-dry Mills' hair, work unreasonable hours, and spray-tan a naked Mills."

• At least the nanny only had to spray-tan one leg! Mills denies the accusations and her flack says, "Heather is devastated that Sara, who Heather considered a part of her family, should choose to level these accusations at her. This claim will be vigorously defended." [MSNBC]
• This Tom Cruise interview in the Sun sounds like it was robot generated. Sample passage: "He says: 'Life is never boring because I’m meeting so many interesting people and I have so many interests.'" Tom also says he wants ten children and that he regrets speaking out about Scientology because it made him sound like a loon, and he's not talking about it these days. "‘That’s it, no more — go to the Scientology website." [The Sun]
• Is J.Lo's marriage really dunzo? Though she and Marc Anthony renewed their vows mere months ago, sources tell the Daily News they're going to file for divorce after Marc's Valentine's Day show at Madison Square Garden. “Jennifer is planning on joining Marc onstage for a surprise duet. Things haven’t been right for a while now, and they thought it would be a bittersweet farewell.” Both J.Lo and Marc have been galivanting around without their wedding rings lately. [NYDN]
• Paris Hilton went to Melbourne, Australia, to try to get a deal endorsing…something, but was unable to secure any cash. But don't cry for Paris, Australia: rumor is she will be getting a cool $100,000 to host a New Years' party in Sydney with her sister, Nicky. [Herald Sun]
• Mariah Carey: still not pregnant. Your Mariah womb watch will continue in 2009. [Fox News]
• Also not pregnant: Eva Longoria. But she sure does want to be! [Daily Express]
• Joel Madden wants to be an actor. The Good Charlotte singer and boyf to Nicole Richie has been taking acting lessons and secured a part in the upcoming tour de force from MTV based on the video game Rock Band. [MSNBC]
• Hugh Jackman says that his guilty pleasure is Cream Caramel and that he believes in love at first sight, because that's what happened with his wife. "I was 27, single and not expecting to get married. Then I met Deb and it was a no-brainer that we should be together as it was ten times better than being single." Aw. [Daily Mail]
• Are the Kardashian-Jenners feeling the credit crunch? They're putting their Hidden Hills, CA home on the market for $3.395 million. [TMZ]
• Apparently Kanye West has taken up chanting to "ward off evil spirits." Yeah, I don't know. [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse's former lover/assistant Alex Haines sold his story to The News of the World. Haines tells them that Amy had toast and crack for breakfast every day, was bulimic and an avid cutter. Oy. [Dlisted]
• Anjelica Huston's husband, the sculptor Robert Graham, has died. He's best known for his bronze work, notes the New York Times, particularly the sculpture that marks "the Roosevelt memorial, where bronze panels symbolize the 54 social programs that were initiated under the president's New Deal. Graham also created the life-size, bronze figure of President Roosevelt in his wheelchair at the entrance of the memorial." [NYT]
• Emma Watson finds the amount of money she made playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series (an estimated £10 million) fairly absurd. "Why would someone my age need this much money?" Watson says. "Let's face it, I don't really have any use for it." [Telegraph]
• Oh lord, Michael Lohan insists that he has Lindsay's best interests in mind. He writes to blogger Oh No They Didn't, "Is a villain someone who wants to keep people of a negative influence out of his daugther's life. A perosn who wants to protect her from and obviously unhealthy relationship which has brought her life and career to an all time low! 'inday is a good hearted gifted and blessed human being..The saying ':ow me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are." Michael Lohan's misspellings and bad grammar have been left unedited. [ONTD]
• Brace yourselves for this deeply upsetting surprise: Whitney Port's "job" at Diane Von Furstenberg as portrayed in the MTV reality show The City is not actually a real job. We know, you're ever so shocked. Says a source, "She doesn't really work. She is hardly ever in the office…[Real Furstenberg employees] can't get their work done because MTV tells them they can't move any thing at their work stations. They do so many reshoots that everything has to look exactly the same every day." Imagine that! [Page Six]
• Diddy offered the City of New York $1 million if they made Ciroc vodka the official vodka of New Year's Eve and painted the ball in Times Square purple, as purple is the color of grapes that are used to make his Ciroc. The City of New York has politely declined. [Page Six]
• A British director has made a documentary about Carla Bruni. In it she talks about her music and her marriage to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She says her attraction to Sarkozy was "instantaneous" and "immediate." She adds, "I don't know what he has but he has something very protective that I have never found before, maybe because I was much more attracted to artists." [Telegraph]
• Here's a marginally funny video with Jerry O'Connell and a very pregnant Rebecca Romijn in which she pretends that she is her shape-shifting X-Men character Mystique and gets testy because her babies are too human to shape-shift. Mreh. [Funny Or Die]
• Madonna's alleged boyfriend, 20-year-old Brazilian model Jesus Luz, has recently appeared in an "erotic" TV show, says the Telegraph. Luz "guest starred as Diogo, a jilted boyfriend, in the programme, titled Hostel. He was seen being led by his girlfriend to a party, where he drank too much and got drunk, passing out on a chair. While Diogo was unconscious, his girlfriend was seen making love to another man." [ Telegraph]
• "There's nothing worse than being a woman in show business . . . you'll be asked to do only two things in every [bleep]ing role you ever play: take your shirt off and cry." — David Mamet. [Page Six]

According to Williams, Krupp's "main mantra is a call to simple, unfussy elegance: loose hair, lighter makeup, restraint of embellishment." Williams has also taken her "frumpy, mid-calf skirts to the tailor to be shortened to knee length." This is advice that could be used by professional woman of any age, but her book has been packaged to play on women's fear of aging in a youth-obsessed culture.

An undercurrent to Krupp's schtick, and something she discussed when she was on the Today show, is that if you look old, no one will hire you. She wants to inspire fear in the hearts of baby boomers, telling them that "If you're wearing clothes that are dated, people are going to think your ideas are dated." But you know, wearing presentable, flattering clothing makes a better impression on employers no matter WHAT age you are, or, for that matter, what gender.

Staying fit, wearing flattering clothes, getting a haircut. These things make most women feel better about themselves whether they are 15 or 55. There's a way to grow old gracefully, to look your age and still look good. And anyway, like Charla's really a good role model for aging gracefully. With her bleached blond hair and Botox, it's clear she'd rather look like Heidi Montag than Anjelica Huston.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Eileen Fisher [Salon]

Earlier: How Not To Look Old Author Doesn't Look Old, But She Does Look Stupid
Standards Of Beauty

• 24 star Kiefer Sutherland is in the slammer! The actor will serve 48 days in Glendale City Jail for his DUI conviction, which means he'll be there for his birthday, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Keep your head up, Kiefer! [TMZ]
  
• Also booked on DUI charges, with the LAPD: Vivica A. Fox. She was at the police station for 20 minutes. People! Do not drink and drive! [TMZ]
  
• John Mayer exchanged numbers with Ricki Lake at a party Tuesday, saying, "I've had a crush on you for two years." Uh, since she's been real thin, you mean? [Page Six]
  
• In 1989, when Anjelica Huston found out that Jack Nicholson had gotten Rebecca Broussard pregnant, Jack says she "[came] down to my job and beat the hell out of me. She really beat me up, I tell you. Anjelica can punch!" [Page Six]

• Her Royal Highness The Queen of England attended a charity event at which Joan Rivers took the stage and cursed "13 times in seven minutes." Goodness! [Page Six]
• Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow had dinner together?!? Amicable! [Page Six]
• Ryan Phillippe and Aussie actress Abbie Cornish are a real couple. They supposedly had a fling while filming a movie together (ending Ryan's seven year marriage to Reese Witherspoon) though Abbie denied it at the time. But photographs of her hanging out with his kids are out, making them official. Awkward! [Gatecrasher]
• Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos and hotelier Vikram Chatwal "fell" into the pool of a hotel in Beverly Hills while playing with a dog recently. Vikram had to get stitches, but when he came out of the hospital, Stavros toasted him with a cocktail called the Salty Dog. Oh, to be an international playboy. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which velvet-voiced crooner with a famous parent is using his new fame to stock his bed with young lovelies - every time his wife is out of town?" [Gatecrasher, last item]
• In Russia in 2000, Actor Laurence Fishburne got super stoned and then rode a motorcycle with starchitect Frank Gehry on the back; Fishburne thought he was losing control of the bike, freaked out and nearly killed them both. High times! [Rush & Molloy]
• Jay-Z's contract as Universal Music label executive may not be renewed. 99 problems... [Rush & Molloy]
• Meanwhile, Jay celebrated his 38th birthday in Paris with Beyoncé. Le Gangster Américain! [People]
• At an awards event, Jodi Foster said she was a "gentleman" and a "professional" who is also "nutty as a fruitcake." No arguments here. [Rush & Molloy]
• Are Britney and Paris feuding? Apparently Brit write a nasty note to Paris, saying they'd heard rumors of a new sex tape scandal, and that if Paris continues to be rude to people, the footage will be leaked online. Paris allegedly laughed when she got the letter and called it "crap." [MSNBC]
• Nicole Richie was granted a leave of absence from her court-mandated anto-drinking program: The program suggested she discontinue because they are worried for her safety. But Nic's rep says they offer that option to anyone and she's not receiving special treatment. Sure, sure. [People]
• Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton says she's having so much fun being on tour with the Spice Girls and gets so worked up on stage that she "forgets the lyrics." Baby, whenever you don't know what to say, just shout "Gul Powah!" [People]